How much trouble is a single comb in winter?

[Catie79]

I'm pretty confident with our ventilation. They hubby made our coops for a lot of flow specifically for the summer and we have no condensation or ammonia smell. They're also under stocked, with 4 girls in a 4'x8' and 4 girls and 1 boy in the big 8'x8'. Stocking will change next year, but right now it's a lot of space. Our humidity is the same as the humidity outside, which unfortunately has been very high with random snaps in the single digits and high wind.

It seems like if I want to keep single combs, I'll be spending a lot of the winter out putting bag balm on their combs and trying to get the nipple watering system set up to run in the cold. We currently are using heated waterers in the runs to keep everyone hydrated since the nipple system with the pvc pipe froze solid. While it sounds like success is possible, it also sounds like with my humidity and cold, I'm better off without a single comb bird.

 

[Stoili]

I took a low voltage under water light for a kio pond and submerged it in my 5 gallon bucket watered.
It seems to be working so far keeping the 4 nipples on the bottom from freezing. I ran the landscape lighting wire to my coop to run the light and other lights in the coop.

 

[arkwelded]

Arkweld. What do you mean be a "small heat tube"?

I made a heater out of a 3'x6" chimney and a heating element. It is upright and creates convection when the element is on. It draws cold air off the floor and pushes hot out the top. I control it with a dimmer. I am rewiring the controls for the heater and lightin I will post pics when I am done

 

[MY1235]

Get Buckeye chickens. They're cold hardy, good meat birds, and have pea combs.

 

[Jewellan]

I have two White Leghorns in Sparks Nevada. It has already been 19 degrees and I have not had to do anything to the combs on my ladies. They sleep outside on the outer Roost (don't know how smart that is but...) I do not have supplemental heat or lights, I do nave a base heater for my Galvanized Water container. I will use Vaseline on the Combs now if it gets below freezing. So far it's been a mild winter here. But my ladies seem to be fine and happy. I don't think the weather bothers them at all. I think I worry about it more than they do.

 

[Catie79]

Get Buckeye chickens. They're cold hardy, good meat birds, and have pea combs.

I've placed an order for 30 Chantecler chicks from a local breeder, can't get much more cold hardy than a bird developed in Canada! Mostly it's for my sanity, I think I'll enjoy my chickens more if I'm not pacing during a Nor'easter and worrying about the birds. I adore by barred rock girls and they're doing just fine in the cold, but it's probably best to go for a bird designed for my kind of climate.

I made a heater out of a 3'x6" chimney and a heating element. It is upright and creates convection when the element is on. It draws cold air off the floor and pushes hot out the top. I control it with a dimmer. I am rewiring the controls for the heater and lightin I will post pics when I am done

That's an interesting idea. I saw a ventilation design similar to that, with a pipe running from near the floor to up out of the roof of the coop. I've been considering adding one to the littler coop to play it safe.

 

[arkwelded]

the concept is the same as a radiant heater. the idea is that cold air sinks and as it is heated is draws up the pipe past the element, then is distributed across the top of the roost. it doesnt have to heat much, just enough to take the edge off the coop and dry out the air a bit.
having a background in building HVAC has some perks for coop designs. my wife gets worried as i always want to demo the coop and start over with a better idea, i think i had too many lego blocks as a child

 

[hayachy]

greeting guys im new here i have few chiken im farmer from algeria peace god bless

 

[RezChamp]

I live in Manitoba. An area called Central Interlake. For those of you that didn't study Canada(apparently most schools in the US don't as opposed to us up here having US in our Geography studies)Manitoba is pretty well dead center of Canada.
In the Interlake region the summer temps. Are somewhat regulated by the large bodies of water surrounding us. In the winter though....!!..!!
This winter I've already lost 4 W Leghorn roosters. I have 2 rIRs, 2 Buff Orps, a DarkBrahma and 6 Grazers left. Oh....All those are roosters of the breeds I have.
Mind you it's only gotten to -30*C whatever that is in F. As well, them WLHs were adoptees from the local Hutterite colony so they were a bit " not as tuff" as my open ranged birds.
All said last winter we had -50*C for a whole week. Even some of my Chanteclers froze their feet. These were lower on the pecking order so lower roosts.
Also they were in the old coop where the turkeys, guineas, geese and ducks stayed. The door goose door was always open.
My thoughts, no matter which breed we choose, where we live, what our coop is built like, there are always variables. We will always loose some birds to some thing or another.
I agree, ventilation is good. My coop has a fan(interior car heater) pushing fresh (dry)air(heated) into my coop through a clothes dryer hose hanging(right on the window)about half down the wall, half way from one end of the coop to the other. The old stale damp air is pushed out the chicken door.
My coop is off the ground about 2&1/2-3 feet with plastic tarps stapled to the wall and hanging to the ground. The tarps are weighed down with logs(and whatever) then banked with snow. Apparently 4 layers of plastic tarp has 5 times more insulative quality than dbl plywood. The "crawl space is heated with a 60 watt bulb inside a metal pail. It's worked so far.
I don't agree 1sq foot of ventilation /chicken. Not for my area anyhow. No matter the humidity, -50*C is gona freeze whatever it wants that ain't protected from the temp.
Another thing I've found works good, actually better, is lard as opposed to Vaseline. I've lived in these temps all my life and have seen both sets of my grandparents take ducks, geese, chickens and turkey as well as many other creatures through colder weather than most of us will ever experience.

 

[RezChamp]

Yo. hayachy.
Luv your avatar. Did you do it?